7/26/10

Does director Oliver Stone hate Jews? Does he like Hitler? Who knows? We hope not. The man makes some awesome movies.

Is Oliver Stone Jewish? Here is how Wikipedia explains his religion, "[His] father was Jewish and his mother a Roman Catholic of French birth, and Stone was raised an Episcopalian as a compromise (but has since converted to Buddhism)." Isn't Hollywood grand?

A blog post at the Times (by BROOKS BARNES yet compiled by DAVE ITZKOFF whatever that means) sums up the current Oliver Stone imbroglio.

Oliver Stone found himself the catalyst of an online brush fire on Monday after he made comments published in The Sunday Times of London that were interpreted as anti-Semitic. In an interview with The Times to promote his documentary “South of the Border,” which is about South American politics, Mr. Stone defended Hitler. “Hitler was a Frankenstein, but there was also a Dr. Frankenstein,” he said. “German industrialists, the Americans and the British. He had a lot of support. Hitler did far more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people.” Mr. Stone then proceeded to discuss what he called “the Jewish domination of the media,” adding with an expletive that Israel had messed up “United States foreign policy for years.” Bloggers quickly picked up on the comments, and the American Jewish Committee issued a news release condemning him. “By invoking this grotesque, toxic stereotype, Oliver Stone has outed himself as an anti-Semite,” the committee’s executive director, David Harris, said in the release. Mr. Stone, whose next Hollywood movie, “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,” will be released by 20th Century Fox on Sept. 24, has stirred controversy with his comments in this arena before. In January the director told a gathering of television critics that “Hitler is an easy scapegoat” while discussing his Showtime nonfiction mini-series, “Secret History of America.” At that time the Simon Wiesenthal Center harshly rebuked him for the remarks. A spokesman for Mr. Stone was not immediately available to comment.